Quote:
Originally Posted by zircon
There's nothing wrong with making a site dedicated to original music that is basically supposed to be "game soundtrack-esque" but I think Darkesword's point is that remixSite is ALSO hosting VG remixes. And it has "remix" in the title. So, the identity is confusing and it ends up just being a file dump. I would also say that people DO just remix games like FF7 and MM2 primarily due to nostalgia, and secondarily because older games had more melodic music, thus making it easier to remix compared to modern game soundtracks. But I don't know what that has to do with anything.
Quintin, as Dave has already pointed out, you seem far more concerned with numbers (track downloads, views, whatever) than the music itself, and your latest post just reinforces that assertion. Both of them are absolutely right when they say that you need to focus more on community and the MUSIC, and not numbers. If you're just making a website that is a file dump, you're not going to have a community, because you'll have no focus. I know because I did this way back ( www.soundtempest.net, now something completely different.) Tindeck has a clear, singular purpose. It posts MP3s. People can link to their MP3s easily and there's an integrated player right there.
Could you duplicate that functionality? Yes, but why would you want to? I contend that people don't really care about track views, downloads or ratings very much. When you talk about those features, track images, ratings, revisions etc., you're talking about the icing on the cake. You need something substantial FIRST, a novel concept to build around. Simply hosting video game remixes and original music is not really novel enough. |
Well, but you're missing that it was novel enough for VGMix, and that site was incredibly successful. Compare what VGMix could do and what this site can do, and you'll see that this site does more than VGMix ever did with fewer bugs and many fewer security issues. This site was actually conceived in 2005, when VGMix had problems, though it wasn't implemented for four years. Yet, during that time, something happened to eliminate the usefulness of that site. I think it's that video game music remixes are on the decline, and that Ommmmm is exactly right: it's hard to remix Final Fantasy 13 music that's already performed by a full orchestra. Yes, a lot of people may have shown up at MAGFest, but people are remixing the same tired old Chrono Trigger music from what's going on two decades ago. I'm tired of hearing Chrono Trigger remixes and I don't download them anymore. There's nothing new in the community, which is why it is slowly dying out. Look at how the Shizz has degenerated into pointless rubbish and how nobody talks about music there anymore.
The "Tindeck 2" concept that I proposed above may have been misinterpreted. It involves exiting the video game music community entirely, and allowing people from all genres to post original music only. The advantage of that concept is precisely that there wouldn't be any forums or community. It would be a for-profit venture that doesn't require a community to succeed. It's not expected that anyone from here or Overclocked ReMix would use the service, although they would certainly be welcome to do so. The original remixSite could be left online if someone else took over its management, of course.
I hear the suggestions to focus on either remixes or originals, but will doing so really be useful to people? If only five people find the new site useful, then it's not worth the effort. Stats are important, because there's no reason to waste effort on what's not useful to people. While there are a few dedicated musicians involved with this site currently, I don't see a huge influx of video game artists converging on the site no matter what changes are made. There needs to be a core group of dedicated contributors to help out with such a change. I'm open to and want to hear someone prove me wrong, of course.